Robert Sciarrino/The Star-LedgerDeshea Best works as a longshoreman, loading shipping containers onto truck beds at the Port of Newark. She is suing her employer, terminal operator Ports of America, for allegedly allowing a sexually hostile atmosphere to persist.

NEWARK — In the 1954 Marlon Brando film, "On the Waterfront," about the only female character among the longshoremen, corrupt union bosses and crusading clergy on New Jersey’s rough-and-tumble piers is the shy sister of a murdered whistle blower (played, incidentally, by a Newark native, Eva Marie Saint).

More than a half-century later, the waterfront gender gap isn’t much narrower.

"It’s traditionally been male dominated, and it still is," said Walter Arsenault, executive director of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, which was created to fight the kind of organized crime depicted in the film, and now counts sex harassment among the wrongdoing it polices.

Even on today’s highly mechanized docks, where containerization has replaced many a burly dockworker and grappling hook, women make up just 10 percent of deep sea longshoremen at the Port of New York and New Jersey, Arsenault said. And, he said, because of disparities in the number of hours men and women work and the types of equipment they operate, female members of the International Longshoremen’s Association make 35 percent less on average than their male counterparts.

For the few women who do make a living on the docks, their hours and opportunity for advancement can depend on how receptive they are to sexual advances of male superiors, according to findings of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which were issued in response to a complaint by a Newark woman who said her hours were cut by her employer after she reported being groped by a company foreman.

"He actually smacked me on my behind while we were at work," said the woman, DeShea Best, a 35-year-old mother of three who drives a kind of crane on wheels that lifts shipping containers on and off of truck beds.

Best said she is far from the only woman who has been subjected to sexual harassment on the docks, though she is one of the few who were willing to talk about it publicly. Her lawyer, William Martin, said he has spoken to several other women dockworkers who told him they have also been sexually harassed, but none of them has filed a lawsuit.

Best told the EEOC her foreman, Quenton DeCosey, laid his hand on her buttocks on June 7, 2008. She also said that, despite DeCosey’s history of similar behavior toward other female Ports America employees under his supervision, the company refused to do anything about it.

DeCosey and Best are both members of Local 1233 of the International Longshoremen’s Association, and Best said she also complained to union officials, but they, too, failed to take any action.

"The company is saying it’s the local’s responsibility to remove him," Best said. "The local’s saying it’s the company’s responsibility to remove him."

As a so-called straddle truck operator, Best makes $23 an hour, which will increase to $32 in June under the ILA contract. But DeShea said no money is worth the harassment she has received from one of her own union brothers.

Reached by phone, DeCosey refused to discuss the allegations.

"It’s none of your business," he said.

A spokeswoman for Ports America, Colby Haines, declined to comment. The secretary-treasure for Local 1233, Buddy Smith, also had nothing to say on the matter.

James McNamara, a national spokesman for the ILA in New York, declined to comment on Best’s allegations. However, McNamara said sex discrimination, creation of a hostile work environment and sexual harassment in the form of touching, unwanted advances, gestures, remarks or the posting of sexual materials are specifically prohibited among union members and employers under the current contract between the ILA, including Local 1233, and the New York Shipping Association, which represents Ports America and other employers at the port.

Best also complained to the Waterfront Commission, but said she has been frustrated by the lack of any action in the case.

But , Arsenault said the commission had brought administrative charges against DeCosey following its investigation into Best’s allegations, seeking to revoke his license as a longshoreman and bar him from working on the waterfront. Arsenault said DeCosey is scheduled for a first appearance in the case before an administrative law judge on Dec. 6.

In the EEOC ruling on Best’s complaint, dated June 17, 2010, the agency determined that, "The evidence as a whole indicates that Charging Party (Best) and other females, as a class, were subjected to sexual harassment. The evidence further indicates that respondent (Ports America) has full liability in this matter due to its failure to take effective remedial action against its Ship Foreman in response to prior complaints that could have prevented the sexual harassment Charging Party was consequently subject to. Finally, the evidence confirms that Charging Party was subjected to unlawful retaliation in response to her internal complaint."

Under federal guidelines, Best was required to file the EEOC complaint before taking her case to the federal courts. When Ports America and DeCosey declined the EEOC’s invitation to submit a settlement offer, Best filed suit in U.S. District Court in Newark.

"Defendants have created or allowed a sexually charged work environment to exist," the suit, dated Aug. 25, 2010, states.

In its response to the suit, Ports America stated: "Defendants deny that they discriminated or retaliated against Plaintiff or otherwise engaged in unlawful conduct or caused her any harm."

Like associating with organized crime figures or collecting pay for no-show jobs, sexual harassment has become one more prohibited activity the Waterfront Commission investigates.

"It’s not unusual for our police division to receive reports of sexual harassment," said Arsenanault, the commission director. "When we do, we try to work with the companies to correct the situation if, in fact, it exists. We have, on occasion, taken registrants to the hearing room and revoked their right to work on the waterfront."

In fact, groping a female security guard was among the charges cited in August by the commission in revoking longshoreman Roy Marohn’s license to work on the waterfront. Marohn, a union maintenance man, had been married to the sister of the daughter-in-law of the late Ralph Gigante, brother of the late Genovese crime family boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante. The commission found Marohn grabbed the guard’s legs and breast inside her booth at the Port Newark Container Terminal in May 2007. Marohn denied the charge, but his appeal was rejected by an Appellate Court judge, who upheld the revocation.

This story has been updated to reflect the following correction: Roy Marohn was not Gigante's son-in-law but had but had been married to the sister of Gigante's daughter-in-law. The text has since been updated.